Contents

Introductory cutscene

Thirty-two years have passed since the Great War. The Shivans vanished half a lifetime ago, and now we live in the mausoleum of history. We inherit the legacy of ghosts who haunt these ruins. The elders call us the lost generation.

I remember stories of a glorious civilization, of cities with spires that reached the sun, of a blue planet with vast seas, of people with myths of humanity everlasting, of children who saw in the embers of dying stars the destiny of their race, and they hurled themselves into the void of space with no fear. They say our people have no present, only a past filled with horror and a future they can only dream of.

Now we forge a new alliance to guard the tomb of space, and to find within its cold expanse the salvation of our race.

Monologue 1

Thirty-two years ago in the Altair system, Vasudan scientists discovered the remnants of an extinct civilization we now call the Ancients. In here we found the secret to defeat the Shivans. How close did we come to being a footnote in the history of a future species that would happen upon our ruins ten thousand years from now? Would they indulge in the fiction of their own immortality until the Shivans came for them, and how long had this gone on?

Did the Ancients stumble upon the monoliths and the tombs of their predecessors in this distant corner of space, dismissing the warnings carved into the walls of the sepulchre? And when the destroyers came at last what did the Ancients think as they sifted the cremation of dust and bones, staring into the mute remains for a key, some solution to their plight?

What if there had been countless races, stretching back into infinity and like the nine cities of Troy, each civilization had been built on the rubble of the one that came before, each annihilated by the Shivans.

The Ancients died eight thousand years ago, as humanity emerged from its Neolithic infancy, they believed their voyage across the sea of stars awakened the dragon that slept beneath the waves, that the Shivans were birthed in the flux of subspace and their destruction was the revenge of an angry cosmos.

Narrator:The following is classified level Rho. Unauthorized access is punishable under the GTVA Security Act, Deneb Convention, Section 21.3.5. We vanquished the Shivans in the Great War, but the hard questions remained. How would we confront the threat of future invasion? The Shivans might return at any time, any place, without warning. How would we fight the next threat to the very existence of our species? In 2345, on the tenth anniversary of the Shivan attack on Ross 128, the Vasudan Emperor Khonsu II addressed the newly-formed GTVA General Assembly. The Emperor inaugurated an ambitious and unprecedented joint endeavor: the GTVA Colossus.

Khonsu II: Together we built a civilization on the ruins of the Great War, and now we stand on the threshold of a new era of prosperity and harmony. Project Colossus the Vasudan people celebrate our shared covenant of peaceful coexistence and mutual defense of our Terran allies.

Narrator:The Colossus is the most powerful space-faring warship ever constructed. Spanning six kilometers from bow to stern, the Colossus has taken over twenty years to complete. Twelve Lucifer-class destroyers can fit within its massive hull. Its state-of-the-art weaponry includes forty-five laser turrets, fifteen flack guns, twelve missile batteries, and twelve beam cannons. The Colossus wields more firepower than twelve Orion-class destroyers combined. Sixty fighter and bomber wings are housed in its vast hangar, and its crew numbers over thirty thousand. Among its contractors are industry giants Triton Dynamics, Subach-Innes, and the Akheton Corporation.

The alliance now wages war on multiple fronts in Deneb, Alpha Centauri, Epsilon Pegasi and the mysterious nebula beyond Gamma Draconis. Once deployed, the Colossus will end these conflicts swiftly and decisively. If ever the Shivans return to threaten our worlds, we will be ready to face the challenge, securing peace for today and for generations to come.

Monologue 2

I hear my enemies speculate about my motives, my ambitions. Who is Admiral Aken Bosch, and what is that old scoundrel up to? The tragedy of my life is that I will be remembered as the butcher of innocents, and this assessment is not unfair. I cannot argue with their condemnation or with the verdict of history.

The Neo-Terran Front is an army of stupid cattle, driven by their hatreds, their fears and insecurities. Ignorance is the greatest weapon of tyranny and old wounds open all too easily. I am merely a fool who created a monster I am now powerless to stop, and so I will play my role to the bloody end. I have given the Lost Generation something to die for, and now my legacy will be crowned with infamy.

What my enemies will never understand is that my rebellion is about my love for humanity and not my hatred of Vasudans. In the Gamma Draconis system the destroyers have returned and soon the alliance will learn the method behind my madness.

Monologue 3

Why does the Ancient portal lead us here? Have the Shivans been waiting for us for thousands of years? This odyssey, this exodus, do we journey towards the promised land or into the Valley of the Kings?

Three decades ago, I envisioned a new future for our species and now that we are on the brink of realizing my dream, I feel only solitude and regret. Has my entire life's work been a fool's crusade? Have I led my people into this desert, only to die?

My regime has caused nothing but savagery and suffering, but I cannot turn back now. I must find the destroyers that lurk behind this veil of clouds or I must wait for the destroyers to find me.

The nebula is the remnant of a supernova thousands if not billions of light years from Earth and I wonder now if our ancestors witnessed the death of this star erupting over an Egyptian landscape, blazing with the brilliance of four hundred million suns. Even in their divinity no pharaoh could have imagined this.

Monologue 4

This is the final entry in the personal log of Admiral Aken Bosch, Supreme Commander of the Neo-Terran Front. Our encounter with the Shivans has vindicated all I have fought for these past thirty years. My life's work has been achieved. I have created the technology to enable communication between the Shivans and the human race. Although our first contact was rudimentary and crude, I have initiated the first phase of a new alliance with the Destroyers. An alliance upon which the fate of humanity depends.

As a young pilot, I battled against the rebels of the Great War, the Galactic Terran Intelligence whose research of Shivan technology and biology would form the cornerstone of my project. The Terran-Vasudan Alliance buried this knowledge but I resurrected it. I alone realized our species had no future with the Vasudans. If we are to survive, our destiny must lie elsewhere.

As I make this final entry my crew is preparing to scuttle the NTF Iceni and board the Shivan transports. We embark on a miraculous journey towards a new horizon. This tragic era of hatred and misunderstanding between our races is over. On this day, for the first time in my life, I am filled with joy.

Campaign end: Alpha 1 survived

To the officers and crew of the GTD Aquitaine. We have halted the Shivan advance. The battle of Capella is over. We sealed off the system and our people are safe, maybe forever. No one can fathom how or why the Shivans destroyed the Capella star. Though we know our enemy better now than we did 32 years ago, their motives remain a mystery. Perhaps they are exiles like we are, nomads wandering the universe, searching for a way back home. The explosion of a star might be a bridge between this universe and their own. As the old poet once said "There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy." From our odyssey into Hell, we have returned with a gift. The Ancient technology to build a portal between Delta Serpentis and Sol. To restore the link to our blue planet. To return home after all these years.

This is Admiral Petrach, signing off.

Campaign end: Alpha 1 died

To the pilots and crew of the 70th Blue Lions, GTD Aquitaine. It is my sad duty to report that your squadron leader never reached the Vega system. According to observers, Alpha One remained behind so that others might reach the Vega node. The pilot made this decision even after being advised of the impending catastrophe. Because of this sacrifice and the sacrifice of thousands of others, we halted the Shivan advance. We sealed off Capella and our people are safe, maybe forever. No one can fathom how or why the Shivans destroyed the Capella star. We lost a place many of us called home. We lost entire squadrons, the Colossus, and most of our fleet. We lost so many friends that we celebrate our victory with grief and mourning.From our odyssey into Hell, we have returned with a gift. The Ancient technology to build a portal between Delta Serpentis and Sol. To restore our link to planet Earth. To return home after all these years.